Melting Metal

Continuing with the theme of liquifying things that are usually solid, I decided that it's finally time to upgrade my soldering iron. There wasn't really anything wrong with my old iron, save for the fact that it was a fixed-wattage style that took a good 5 minutes to heat up when first turned on. Technology has apparently advanced somewhat in the last 30 years (who knew?) and modern soldering irons now have full power control with a temperature probe in the tip, so they can heat up to 400°c in a matter of seconds with a 200w heater cartridge, then scale back the power to maintain exactly that temperature, give or take, depending on how well the PID loop is tuned.

And I guess they also want me to get high on the solder fumes.

And then take a little nap on the hibernation seat afterwards.

Alright, it's shiny and new, so let's enjoy the peel.

Oh yeah, that's the good stuff. And let's not forget the lower display too, just grab the little tape tag and...

Oh, hmm. That's not right. Well, a little digging around the edge with a craft knife gets it started just as well.

I guess the QC doesn't include verifying the quality of the film peel.

So as I mentioned, this style of soldering station uses a removable cartridge.

And since I tend to run into a variety of soldering tasks, I opted for the one with two different handles that take larger and smaller tips.

The larger is T245 and the smaller is T210. The larger one is nice when I need to dump a lot of heat into a part to get the solder to flow properly, while the smaller one will come in handy when working in tight quarters.

The base station has a fancy colour display and really likes to beep at you at every possible occasion. I guess that's going to take a bit of getting used to, but luckily there's a volume control I can turn right down.

As for my old soldering iron, I guess it's time to find it a new home.

Perhaps the next owner will actually get around to using some of the spare tips.

I guess only time will tell.

Welding Spots

Continuing with the theme of sheet metal tools, I decided to add a spot welder to my arsenal.

Admittedly the motivation here is partly "they're really cheap" but I also have a project coming up where being able to weld together pieces of sheet metal will be preferable to riveting them in some spots. But more on that in a later blog post, for now let's get this thing out of the box and test it out.

Yup, looks like a spot welder. Interestingly the instructions seem to imply that the time required for a weld is at least partially dependent on operator skill, which is an interesting take.

Since this is a 240v welder they apparently decided that there's too many different options for 240v plugs so they just ship it without one. So, $20 added to the final price to make up for that, I guess.

Well no worries, on it goes.

Now I can just plug it into the 240v outlet in my car hole which is right over... wait a minute.

Just kidding, I actually did this on purpose. My TIG welder also uses a 6-50p, and I have an adapter that goes to 10-30p.

I could have bought the 10-30p plug for this, but I eventually want to put in a proper 50a 6-50r receptacle, so swapping the plug end out again later would just end up being a waste.

Of course this spot welder only requires 16a so all of this is overkill, but it's much more convenient than trying to figure out how to power a 120v spot welder since most of those require a 40a 120v circuit, and who even has those?

Anyway, time to stick some metal together, so we'll grab some scraps of 26ga galvanized.

Spot welding is really nice for galvanized since it doesn't boil off nearly as much of the zinc as other welding processes, so you don't have to strip off the plating or take extreme measures to avoid inhaling the fumes.

Alright, let's give this a zap.

Ok, that was too much zap, I left a little smudge of the electrodes in the weld. I guess on the bright side I didn't blow a hole straight through, so that's nice.

I think I got the timing worked out on the last weld. I really does only require just a tiny tickle on the switch to produce a solid weld on this gauge metal, despite the galvanization which can sometimes require a bit of extra energy to zap through.

And it is properly stuck together, I pried the sheets apart here and the metal just bent right at the weld nugget.

So that's another capability unlocked I guess!

Just A Little Nibble

So I have a project coming up where I need to fit something into a square hole. Getting the thing in the hole isn't the hard part, though, it's making the hole in the first place in a piece of sheet metal.

You see, if you want to make a small round hole, you can use a step drill bit. If you want to make a large square hole, you can use shears. But a small square hole? That requires a different approach.

I have chosen the approach of using a nibbler.

The way this works is, as its name might suggest, by nibbling its way through the metal, using this square edged punch thats drawn down into the face of the tool.

So let's give it a test run on a small piece of scrap, just a bit of 26ga galvanized left over from a previous project. The first step is to drill a 3/8" hole so that the die of the nibbler can fit through.

And yes, installing this toggle switch in a piece of sheet metal is the actual task I'll be aiming to do later. It requires a 1/2" by 3/4" rectangular hole, which I scribe out on some blue sharpie.

The scrap itself isn't perfectly square, so ignore that it looks a little wonky on the top edge.

Anyway, let's give it a nibble.

Well that was refreshingly easy. The nibbler went through it just like butter.

Also pro tip: if you've never used one of these before you might think that the tool should be inserted from the top, but it is way, way easier to guide the cut if you insert it from the bottom, so try to do that whenever possible.

After making a full lap, the hole is pretty close to the marks, but I did miss them here and there by just a smidge.

Rather than try to shave off the last little bits with the nibbler, I'll instead use some files to take the cut to the line. It'll also give me a chance to deburr the hole, which can be a little sharp on the backside.

And a test fit shows that the switch snaps right in.

And everything looks good from the back too.

Well, I'll call that a success.

Pure 90s Cringe

Since it was recently 3/03 day, which is one of the few "funny number" days that both Americans and Europeans can agree on, I decided to pick up a 303. Not the legendary Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer, the device which single-handedly launched the entire musical genre of Acid Drum and Bass, but instead the Roland MC-303 groove box which launched absolutely nothing of value.

Which is a bit odd, considering that this one box could easily substitute for a TB-303, while also stepping in for much loved drum machines like the TR-808, TR-909, TR-606 and CR-78, while still having room left over for 6 more (admittedly rompler) synth parts.

But its cardinal sin was, I think, that it came with too many preset patterns, which led people who consider themselves serious musicians to dismiss it, putting it in the same category as those home keyboards that play a whole song when you just hold down a single key. Thus it was relegated to the DJ table of tweeners' birthday parties where they could dance to its slightly too repetitive preset beats.

That said, many products that Roland has produced over the years, like the aforementioned bass and drum machines, were initially considered failures until they were unloaded in thrift shops and sold for $100 to a new generation of aspiring musicians who would then go on to produce great, genre-defining works with them.  The MC-303 is no different in that regard. Well, at least the part where I picked it up from a thrift shop for $100, I don't think anyone's made any great, genre-defining works with one. (Though the MC-505 that came out later as its replacement did see some success)

Anyway, all that aside this box was only $100 because it doesn't work, so let's crack it open and see what juicy goodness awaits us inside.

Ah yes, juicy goodness. Some obvious signs of spilled liquids on the bottom case there.

And it's on the main panel PCB as well, here's a few extra juicy spots.

And on the top side things are looking kinda sticky.

When I did the initial tests the unit powered on and most functions seemed to work, but the buttons in this corner in particular were largely nonfunctional, including SW27 which is the 'Play' button. Rather important one, that. Checking the resistance showed a reading of hundreds of ohms with the switch pressed, so they obviously need replacement.

So let's get the plastic key caps off and bust out the IPA.

And with a little scrubbing, things are looking dramatically cleaner.

This cleaning didn't bring the switches back to life, of course, and these rubber dome 8x8x5 switches in particular are a bit tricky to find replacements for.

The original switches are made by Panasonic, and Roland was very fond of using their switches for a while in the 90s up until Panasonic stopped manufacturing switches because they were so incredibly bad at it. Other manufacturers still make similar switches, but most of them are semi-anonymous Chinese factories that are hard to pin down the identity of and even harder to order from. Luckily there's still some new-old-stock of the QJJ05Q switches floating around, so I ordered some of those off eBay and we'll see how things go when they arrive.

The other tact switches are thankfully much easier to find, they're just bog standard 6x6x5 clicky switches with the only peculiarity being that they're 2-pin rather than the more common 4-pin variety. I already had a bag of them laying around that I was planning to use for my Roland JP-8000, but I didn't feel bad pilfering them as I can always buy more.

So, nothing to it but to do it.

35 old crusty switches come out...

And 35 shiny new switches go in.

Then everything goes back in the box, which has now been cleaned, for a quick test.

Don't worry about half the display being blank, that's just due to the really slow refresh rate on the LED matrix.

And with the knobs back on and the case buttoned up (and with the picture timed to show the other half of the display lit up)...

All the replaced buttons are working perfectly, and I was able to validate the full functionality of the system.

Quite surprisingly I didn't need to replace or service any of the potentiometers along the top. It's really common for them to get damaged since Roland for some reason didn't see fit to actually bolt them down to the solid metal front panel, so a suitably forceful sideways strike can basically split the potentiometer clean in half. I guess I'll count my blessings on that one.

Anyway, all that's left to do now is wait for the NOS switches to arrive so that the 3-4 dead keyboard keys can be revived and it'll be good as new. There'll be nothing left to fix or improve...

Or will there be? Stay tuned.

Spring Has Sprung

I may have mentioned this in a previous blog entry, or I may have not, but in either case I've been on a mission recently to rid my yard of calla lilies, or at least the ones that are popping up in inappropriate places, like in plant pots with other plants, or interspersed with my rosemary, or erupting out from under my iris plants.

But I decided to leave the ones here beside the former hantavirus shed.

There's nothing else growing here and they're basically out of the way, so they can stay.

Anyway, the plum is in full bloom now and looking all white and fluffy.

Hopefully I'll get a decent crop of fruit this year, but one never knows.

Elsewhere the geraniums are doing their gerenial things.

And the periwinkle are being their usual unkillable selves.

I've been debating ripping up this one too, as it's a rather aggressive invasive plant, but so far I've managed to keep it contained without too much effort.

The milkwort in the front is doing surprisingly well, despite it repeatedly trying to kill itself.

And the same goes for the spanish lavender.

The french lavender isn't in bloom yet, so we'll give it a few more months before taking some beauty pics of it.

The pink lemonade blueberry is in full bloom.

I'm not expecting a huge crop because the plant is still pretty small, but we'll see how things progress.

The gay goblin is being gay and goblinesque.

And the japanese boxwood is looking green and fluffy.

Though perhaps a bit too green and fluffy, so I gave it a quick trim with the hedge clippers after taking this photo.

All in all the yard is doing quite well so far this year.